"Wow—so you get a punishment, and you pay it off with money, junior?"
Yeomin sneered at Taeoh. Seeing that, Dansol stepped in for Taeoh.
"It's not like that, sunbae. Taeoh-ssi's fans sent it."
"Oh, an idol. Nice—thanks for the food. But you're an idol too, right? Don't you have anything?"
Yeomin said, looking at Dansol. Dansol had nothing to say, so he pressed his lips together.
At some point, Dohyeon—who'd been stuck to Yeomin's side the whole time, like they'd teamed up—muttered something, and Yeomin snickered.
No one else heard it, but Taeoh and Dansol, standing close enough, definitely did.
"Hyung, they're a flop idol group."
Flop idol group.
Dansol wasn't unaware. He'd heard it so much that he'd gone numb to it—enough to joke about it himself now.
But still…
Hearing it from someone else's mouth—especially from Yoo Dohyeon's—was truly the worst.
He felt the emotions he'd kept forcibly pressing down surge up inside him.
He knew the cameras and lights were blazing. He knew he shouldn't do this.
But he couldn't control it.
No—he couldn't hold it in anymore.
If anything had changed since before the regression, it was this: he wasn't afraid of people hating him anymore.
"Sunbae, that's going too far. Apologize."
"What?"
Yoo Dohyeon reacted sharply, like he'd heard something he shouldn't have. With what had happened with Yiyeon, he already saw Dansol as a thorn in his side.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Why? What is it?"
As the aggressive mood thickened between them, people started gathering one by one. It was earlier than before the regression, but it wasn't unfamiliar.
No—this kind of situation was familiar to Dansol.
Once people gathered, Dohyeon suddenly changed his face and put on an act.
"I think Dansol-ssi misunderstood… Is there something you're upset with me about?"
It was exactly what you'd expect from someone who made a living off acting.
Back then, even Dansol had been fooled by that face.
"Yes. You called me a 'flop idol.' I heard you talking to Yoon Yeomin sunbae. I heard everything. Apologize."
"…Hah. Sounds like you misheard, Dansol-ssi. I never said that. What 'flop'? I don't even know what that word means."
"You really don't know?"
"I don't. I'm telling you, I never said that. Sunbae, did I say that?"
"Uh… no? I'm not sure. I was thinking about something else, so…"
Yeomin's vague attitude made Dohyeon think Yeomin was siding with him. If anything, Dohyeon grew even more confident as he spoke to Dansol.
"Dansol-ssi, do you have an inferiority complex about that?"
"..."
"I mean, come on. This situation is kind of… like you heard it that way because you already think that about yourself."
Dohyeon's attitude was clearly trampling Dansol's pride.
Taeoh was worrying if he should step in and fight on Dansol's behalf—when Dansol pointed toward where the staff were sitting.
"Then we can check with the audio director."
Even before the regression, the cameras and audio installed everywhere had recorded that it wasn't Dansol's fault.
Yet not a single staff member had stepped forward for him.
Dansol still didn't trust people.
Instead, he trusted his instincts.
If it was Yoo Dohyeon, backed into a corner, then surely—
"Uh… if you took it that way and it made you feel bad, then I guess it's also my fault for speaking vaguely. Let's say it's my fault. I'll apologize."
His prediction landed—Dohyeon tried to slip out with a deliberately ambiguous stance.
PD Choi's eyes, watching the fight, were already sparkling.
No matter how powerful Dohyeon's agency was, with that look on PD Choi's face, there was a high chance this scene would air as-is.
The PD was, in nice terms, stubborn—and in worse terms, a little unhinged. Once he found a scene he wanted to air, he pushed it through no matter what kind of pressure came down.
Before the regression, Dansol had watched multiple agencies scramble to clean up messes because of it.
As a producer, it was a decent quality.
As a human being, it was ruthlessly vile.
Dansol's agency had been the one to take the full hit by accepting PD Choi's method without question.
"I'm not saying we should 'call it that.' I want to confirm it properly. If I really misheard, like you said, I'll sincerely apologize. Let's check."
"No, I'm saying I'll just take the blame. Sorry. That's enough, right? Because of you, everyone's waiting—what is this, seriously? Huh?"
"Exactly. Everyone's waiting, so we can just check the audio—"
"Fuck, why can't you understand? I said I was wrong! And hey! Was what I said wrong?"
Nice.
Inside, Dansol cheered.
For the past three years, even if he didn't want to see it, the show had rerun endlessly and kept resurfacing in communities, forcing him to monitor it again and again.
Rewatching his own program taught him one thing: Yoo Dohyeon, who had once seemed impossibly high and untouchable, was just a kid only a few years older than him.
He was vicious and shrewd.
But he'd only been better than his peers at hiding his true face. Underneath, he was emotional and hot-tempered.
If you used that personality against him, maybe you could create a pretty dramatic scene.
"…Yes. I'm a failed idol. But that's something I say about myself. I don't want to hear it from someone else. I… I didn't live my life that badly. It's just me that's like this—my members… they're talented too. Someday they'll all do well. So from now on… please don't say things like that so casually."
Dansol turned away, forcing back tears that tried to push out.
His fist had gone white from how tightly he'd clenched it, all for that short statement.
After speaking so boldly, the way he trembled as he turned away was so desperate that no one could even bring themselves to speak to him.
Only after he walked all the way to his bathroom inside his room could Dansol finally breathe properly.
That dawn, PD Choi—who normally had the assistant director cut the previews—sat down at his computer himself for the first time in a while.
After a long time thinking, he put Dansol and Dohyeon side by side in a split-screen for next week's teaser and applied mosaic censoring.
Then he stitched in Dohyeon's line, "They're a flop idol group," with Dansol's, "Apologize," ran them through voice distortion, stared at it for a long time, and finally hit Enter.
After the teaser—shot like a current-affairs program—aired, the RO Match Survival forum crashed from traffic.
{RO Match Survival in Island}
White top, shorts, shoes—everything matches what Yoo Dohyeon wore.
(Proof it's Yoo Dohyeon stirring shit with "flop idol" bait.jpg)
└ Holy… I thought Yoo Dohyeon was nice. I'm so disappointed.
└ But it's not confirmed yet, is it? Could just be bait. Stay neutral until it airs.
└ LMAO "neutral" when it's obvious. Unless the staff cut it up letter by letter, this is 100% on Yoo Dohyeon.
└ But who said "Apologize"? Taeoh?
└ No, the silhouette looks like Dansol.
└ If it's Dansol, honestly, Yoo Dohyeon isn't even wrong though…
└ Yeah, DinoSoul is a flop group. Who even knew them before R-Match?
└ You're missing the point. If they're a flop, you can say it to their face? Do flops have no human rights, you psycho?
└ 2222 What kind of miracle logic is that. If someone isn't famous, you can treat them like crap?
└ And they're not a flop now. After R-Match, DinoSoul skyrocketed.
└ For real. I don't get why they didn't blow up before. If the producing was better, they'd have made it already.
I'm betting he said "flop" about Taeoh.
There's no reason for Yoo Dohyeon and Dansol to fight. From the screen, it looks like Yoo Dohyeon whispered to someone and got caught—probably Yeomin. Yeomin and Taeoh have been paired and their chemistry's dead, and they clearly hate each other since episode 1. That was probably the day Taeoh's support trucks came—Yeomin mocked him and Yoo Dohyeon assisted? Then Dansol got dragged into it trying to cover?
Honestly, I'm Hera, and I'm scared it might've been about Taeoh… I've felt actors look down on idols at award shows for agesㅠㅠ If they said it about our Taeoh, I won't let it go.
└ Pretty sure it was about Dansol.
└ No way it's about Taeoh. Taeoh's way more popular than Yoo Dohyeonㅋㅋㅋ Who's calling who a flop;;;; Yoo Dohyeon's fandom is tiny.
└ Unless Yoo Dohyeon's on something, it has to be about Dansol.
└ Actors looking down on idols isn't new, but Sol can act pretty well too.
As posts flooded in all night, people throwing out theories to identify the two mosaicked figures, someone claiming to be a staff member on RO Match Survival in Island appeared.
Continue reading up to chapter 40+ at Novelshub.org